Cute boy! Good eye contact! I agree, focus looks soft. Did you shoot in manual? What were you settings? Could be too slow of a ss... Also, try to avoid shooting in full sun. If you moved him a little more into the shade and turned him toward the sun, you would have more even lighting and should be able to get catchlights in his eyes.

And thank you for that tip! Will deffinatly try that next time! (not with him though.. he's the non-moving around type lol) It wasn't an intended photoshoots, just practicing while they were playing outside.

Could the softness be to over editing??? Or is it always due to how you took the shot?
And that was my friends son

It's soft because of your shutter speed. Your shutter speed is the time it takes for your shutter to open & close. It determines how much light is let in and also how motion is portrayed. Fast shutter speeds will freeze motion and slow shutter speeds will show blur.

There are 2 things you need to be aware of with your SS. One is handholding. A general rule of thumb is to keep your SS at least 2 times your focal length. So if you're shooting at 50mm, you want a minimum SS of 1/100. If you're shooting at 100mm, your minimum SS should be 1/200. That's just to avoid camera shake from handholding. Everybody hits a point where they can no longer handhold & get a shake free image, no matter how wide they are shooting. For most people it's around 1/60 to 1/100. I personally don't go below 1/125.

Those above figures are minimums just to avoid camera shake. You'll need even faster to stop subject movement (depending on your subject) It's recommended to keep your SS at least at 1/250 for kids, even if they're just sitting there.

oh wow! You guys are great and very informative! Thank you so much for that! I feel like my eyes have been opened. LOL... Cheesy but true.

So the faster the shutter speed, won't that mean I'll have to up the ISO if I'm already at my lowest f-stop, for the light? Always afraid of the grainy look people always say when the ISO is higher. Or should I stop worrying about that and fix in editing?

I am a newbie too- But, yes, I think you're right. If you're shutter speed is higher, and your f-stop is at it's lowest number, then you might need to up your ISO. I have read many times not to worry about the higher ISO #'s.. it's worth it.